How it Ends
by Dizzy Rockerson
Summary: "Agent Scully is already in love." Takes place at the end of Milagro, and then proceeds to what happened afteward. No real dialogue, I guess. It's sort of a character study of the relationship between M&S, and why Padgett had been correct in what he saw.


HOW IT ENDS

The shots from the fourth floor apartment rang loud and clear down in the basement where they stood. "He kills her," Padgett had said. Mulder lowered his gun, turned on his heel, and ran up the stairs, taking two at a time for speed. Padgett took a final look at his masterpiece, his one true work of art, before throwing it into the incinerator before him.

Mulder thundered down the hallway, gun still in hand. He reached his door and flung it open. He began waving his weapon like a mad man, not sure what he was aiming for, but trying to find something to target. That's when he saw her.

Blood.

There were blood stains permeating her white blouse. She was silent. She was still. He approached with caution, his limbs beginning to tremble from the adrenaline. _'Is she dead, is she dead, is she dead?'_ he thought over and over to himself as he got closer. Now looking down at her she looked that much worse. The blood on her blouse actually traced up her neck, and to her sides as well. Mulder was afraid to touch her; afraid to know what seemed inevitable; afraid he had finally lost the battle.

But then she woke.

Like a switch had been flipped, she suddenly sprang to life. Mulder jumped, taken by surprise by her abrupt movements. Relief flooded his chest, patting the adrenaline down with precision. He leaned forward and allowed her to grasp hold of his neck. He felt her nails claw lightly at his back as she sobbed against his shoulder.

After a minute or so she composed herself. She wasn't one to give into weakness. She pulled away from him, sniffling and wiping her eyes. They looked at each other, no words being spoken, but volumes being said.

His face asked _'are you alright?'_

She nodded and stood, her legs not quite steady. Mulder put out a hand to help her balance, but she dismissed it, and found her own footing. She placed a tentative hand on her chest. The blood felt very real, but there were no wounds to speak of. No pain. Physically, she was fine.

He held out his hand to her and she took it after a moment's hesitation. He led her to the bedroom, where she sat down on the edge of the bed. Mulder rustled through his closet until he had found an old baggy t-shirt that had hardly been worn. He went into the bathroom and ran a washcloth under some warm water. He brought these items to Scully, who was cradling her head in her hands.

He knelt before her, helped her out of her jacket, and began unbuttoning her blouse. She resisted, not out of prudence, but rather, stubbornness; not wanting help with trivial things; not wanting to show anything but complete competence after an ordeal like she had just endured. This was her biggest insecurity, this fear of being seen as weak, but Mulder knew better.

Instead of giving in to her resistance, he gave her a look that read _'humor me'_, and continued to unbutton. He maneuvered her arms through the holes in the blouse, leaving her partially naked, and fully vulnerable, on the edge of his bed.

But he knew what vulnerability did to Scully, and his aim was not to make her feel small. And so he took the wet washcloth and began to wipe away the blood that was beginning to form a crust along her chest and neck. However, he did so in a way as you would wipe the dirt off a friend's back. He made sure it felt to her like he was doing it because it would be easier that way, rather than make her feel like she couldn't do it herself. Convenience over competence. That was his goal.

He wiped down her skin, making no change in demeanor when he cleaned around her breasts, and when he was finished, he handed Scully the t-shirt. He didn't dare do that for her as well, knowing that she would take offense at him putting the shirt on for her. She slipped it over her petite figure, and looked down, avoiding his gaze.

Instead, she got into his bed and laid down facing the wall opposite him. She heard him go and toss the washcloth in the trash (no use saving it, she supposed), and she listened close as his faint footsteps grew louder as he came back into his room.

She was surprised that she wasn't surprised when she felt him crawl into the bed next to her. She was tossed around gently by the water as he positioned himself on the liquid-filled mattress. She felt him move a strand of her hair back behind her ear, and felt him rub her shoulder, not in a domineering way, but in a comforting way.

And that's when she understood.

It was then, as he sat there stroking her shoulder, making no effort to force her to speak, or rest, or do anything really, that she understood what Padgett had been talking about in the jail. Before he left he had said that he had made a mistake. That in his book she fell in love with him, the stranger, but that now he knew it was impossible. He had said that Agent Scully was already in love.

When he had first said it, she didn't know what drove him to do so. Jealousy, perhaps? That Mulder was able to spend so much time with her, and he was not? Just trying to get to her, even? Angry that they had taken him under custody while he was still working endlessly to finish his book?

But Padgett had not been one to act on jealousy, and he wouldn't have acted in bad humour because of the jail. No. Padgett had been a writer. First and foremost, he was a writer, who saw the world through an observer's eyes. He saw things in people, and with those things he could write you pages about them.

He had seen this in Mulder and her. He had seen how they could communicate with nothing more than a soft touch on the arm, or a significant look. He had observed how they always acted with respect for the other's boundaries and insecurities, just as Mulder had done tonight with the washcloth.

What Padgett had seen was her and Mulder's way of showing love. Their way of expressing what both felt deeply, but neither spoke of openly. They didn't need to. Their love wasn't full of roses left on the doorstep, or candle lit dinners for two.

Their love was more substantial. More real.

It was built on friendship, and understanding, and respect.

Padgett was not evil. He didn't write what he did to satisfy his need for some sick vengeance or fetish. He wrote what he did because that's how it was. He wrote what he saw. He saw that Scully was not in love with him, so he ended it the only way he could see fit.

But he couldn't do it to her, and he couldn't do it to him.

What he had seen in them was the truest love there was. Even as he typed down the last few words of his novel, he knew that they had to burn. He knew that he would send his masterpiece up in flames so that she could have him, Mulder, just as the stranger had wanted to have her.

And that is why, beneath the four floors above him, Padgett laid down, flat on his back, his own, warm, beating heart throbbing in his hand. He ripped out his own muscle so that on the fourth floor of this apartment building, Mulder and Scully could lay as they do now. His hand caressing her shoulder, her eyes drooping out of exhaustion, their two hearts, beating as one.

It was, he had decided, the only way it could end.


End file.
